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> Cookies was a simple concept that politicians could glom on to and legislate around, but, yes, they're quite unimportant in the grand scale of things.

GDPR absolutely does not rely on specific implementations. Even earlier things I'm pretty sure don't, but GDPR has a much more general coverage. It's extremely important people understand this when they're writing software.

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Correct; the actual “cookie law” (ePrivacy 2002/58/CE) talks about “the use of electronic communications networks to store information or to gain access to information stored in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user”. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

So local storage is also covered by this law. For other fingerprinting techniques, if you can identify a user, GDPR applies. And for ad purposes, the only realistic legal basis is consent.

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